BALANCING ACADEMICS AND ATHLETICS – WHAT YOUR COACH IS REALLY THINKING

by Braden Keith

Swimmers aren't anointed with time management skills just by getting in a pool. These skills must be learned.

We hear it all day and all night. ‘Swimmers are the best students,’ ‘Swimmers perform academically,’ ‘Swimmers learn time management and life balancing skills.’

As a coach, though, I fear that swimmers have heard these things so often, that they’ve begun presume that it’s a right. Great time management skills just come along when an athlete pays their dues to be on the swim team; that academic success begins the moment a swimmer jumps into the water. There’s somewhat of a sense of entitlement that has begun to form around these ideas, and let me tell you the truth:

THIS IS MAKING YOUR COACH PULL HIS OR HER HAIR OUT.

When you are a young, healthy, able-bodied athlete, in any sport, there are very few good justifications for missing a practice, meet, game, or match. A death in the family, iced-over roads, these are excuses that are acceptable.

The reason, however, that swimming has garnered a reputation for producing the best time managers and the best student-athletes is because we don’t accept a broader range of excuses that might fly elsewhere.

As we are in the midst of final exams in the United States, it is an important time to step back and consider how you got to where you are.

The fact is that academics are a convenient excuse to miss a swim practice. Every student-athlete and every student-athlete’s parents know that all they have to do is tell a coach that “Johnny can’t go to practice, because he needs to study for finals” or “Susie can’t swim today because she needs to be well-rested for her test,” and the coach’s hands are tied. There is little a coach can say in response to the justification of academics over athletics, because in our hearts, we all know that yes: getting an A on a math exam is in fact more important than swim practice, and that a swimmer’s parents, frankly, don’t care what their swim coach has to say on the subject in most cases.

HERE’S WHERE STUDENT-ATHLETES HAVE A CHANCE TO GROW

Everyone in the pool is in agreement that academics always takes priority over athletics. However, if for a young person, these two things are truly the top priorities (this is a matter of philosophy – but there’s a reason why the American educational system has chosen to integrate athletics so heavily into the school system) there are very, very few situations in which an athlete must choose between the two.

The questions that student-athletes need to start asking themselves are how they are truly using their time. If you went on a week-long family vacation over your Thanksgiving holiday, when you knew that your student was struggling with school, you have chosen that family vacation over athletic and academic success.

If you know that you’re going to be out-of-town for much of the winter break, and that you will miss a lot of practices then, and have still chosen to skip practice during finals, then you have chosen your winter break over athletic and academic success.

If you have planned a holiday party prior to the end of the school year, and you have made your child’s attendance at that event mandatory, but their attendance at practice optional, you have chosen that holiday party over your child’s academic and athletic success.

INSTEAD, WE SHOULD BE STARTING EARLY, AND TEACHING YOUR ATHLETE’S STRATEGIES FOR DUAL ATHLETIC AND ACADEMIC SUCCESS

Very rarely does anybody want to learn about time management skills before academics become a problem, and before the big-red-panic button is smashed, meaning that practice attendance goes by the wayside.

Here’s the top strategies I can give to managing these things:

1. Learn what actually works - because it’s probably not what you think. No, all-nighters do not work. No, coming home from school and sitting in front of your text-book does not work. No, saving all of your studying until the night before, or the morning of, a test does not work. No matter how long you’ve been trying these strategies, no matter what anecdotal evidence says, no matter how badly you as a parent or you as a swimmer want to enforce them, study after study after study shows that these are not the best strategies for test performances.

2. Learn from those who know - perhaps the most valuable thing that any swim coach can do, in terms of helping their teams succeed and balance, is to take a practice at the beginning of a season, and bring in a tried-and-true expert to give a seminar on study skills. Strategies like going home and studying the day you first learned something, rather than trying to do it three weeks later before the test. Strategies like taking breaks from studying (practice is a great chance for a mental break from derivatives and gerunds, especially if the coach is trying to work harmoniously and is giving credit to the fact that finals can be a stressful time for swimmers) can be a big win, and too many people assume they know the best way to study and learn without taking the time to read the literature.

3. Talk to your coaches before deciding - you will be amazed on what coaches are willing to do to keep kids in the water. Late arrival, let the swimmer get out 30 minutes early, letting a teammate who is excelling in that class get out 30 minutes early to help tutor them or help them work through a problem, coaching them on time management, helping to keep them focused. The problem is that too often, the coach isn’t brought into the loop until a student is at the breaking point or in the danger zone. In the United States, athletic coaches, along with teachers, peers, and parents, are a part of a child’s support system, and the fact is that because of the nature of what we do, coaches will often have a very different connection with students than any of those other groups. Coaches are able to give students a ‘higher purpose’ for their studying, coaches are able to connect with students on a different level, students are used to receiving constructive criticism from their coaches, and students are used to their coaches holding them to high standards. Therefore, a coach reminding a student to study and how to study can sometimes have a bigger impact than any of the other groups.

4. Understand your circumstances - Every sport has a different circumstance, and it’s important to know those circumstances when planning your life. If your child’s taper meet is in mid-December, then maybe your family tradition becomes grandma travels to you for Thanksgiving, and you travel to grandma for Christmas. If your high school season runs through February, make your big family vacation over spring break rather than winter break. Even different sports have different challenges and opportunities. Football players don’t take Thanksgiving vacations, and so swimmers shouldn’t take big vacations in the middle of their primary season.

5. Respect your coaches, and they’ll return the same - If you have enough respect to get your coach’s input on your child’s specific situation, then they will have the respect to be flexible and understanding about your child’s practice attendance. When your coach really gets angry is when you come to them with a final decision before said coach has had any chance to proactively impact the situation. Coaches like to be in control, and often times, they are quite good at it. Give them a chance. Make it a conversation. The coach shouldn’t dictate to the athlete or the parent, nor should vice versa happen, but there is usually a positive solution to a problem.

6. Hold yourself to a higher standard - as mentioned above, “school over sports” is an easy excuse to get sympathy for your decision to shirk responsibilities to athletics. Your parents will let you get away with it, your teachers will let you get away with it, and even your teammates might let you get away with it. To truly get everything out of the student-athlete experience, however, it is up to the students to hold themselves to a higher standard than that. It’s up to the students to hold themselves to both their academic and athletic commitments. And it’s up to the students to balance their lives.

Reposted from swimswam.com

The Missing Ingredient

By John O’Sullivan of www.changingthegameproject.com

If you have coached long enough, you have probably said this about a player:

“He’s got a lot of talent, but he is just missing something.”

I have written on similar subjects in the past, and there has been academic research in this area. In all likelihood, that missing ingredient was often the inner drive and will to succeed, a burning desire to push on despite obstacles and challenges. Well, now we have an academic term to describe all of this.

In 2005, Dr Angela Duckworth, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, began studying self discipline. She measured 164 middle school students through both IQ and self discipline assessments, and then tracked their progress over a year of school. She found that the students’ self-discipline scores were better predictors of GPA than IQ scores. This self-discipline, combined with a passionate commitment to a task and a burning desire to see it through, she termed GRIT.

Duckworth then developed a 12 question test, which she termed the Grit Scale (click here for link to the test) that takes only a few minutes to complete, but has been shown to be an incredibly good predictor of success. From the National Spelling Bee, to college campuses, Duckworth and her colleagues found that their Grit scores were strong indicators of higher GPAs and better performance.

In their most remarkable finding, Duckworth and her team administered their test to an incoming class at the United States Military Academy at West Point. There, cadets already undergo a complex evaluation of academic grades, physical fitness measurements, and leadership testing, administered by the Army to predict which cadets will survive the rigors of West Point. In the end, Duckworth’s twelve-question Grit Test was a more accurate predictor of who would stay in school!

Now I certainly do not think that Grit is the single determinant of success or achievement. As I have stated many times, performance is made up of a variety of factors, such as talent, coaching, deliberate practice, luck, and motivation to name a few. Yet when I think of all the talented players I coached who did not make it, the missing ingredient was often very close to Duckworth’s description of Grit: “the tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals.” They had talent, they worked hard, but they did not maintain their interest and effort long enough to become elite competitors.

On the other hand, I coached many players who displayed less competence at younger ages, yet often turned out to be the top players in their late teenage years. When I think about this, I truly believe that many of these athletes were forced to develop grit, for nothing came easy for them. They were often younger, smaller, slower, and received fewer accolades than many of their teammates. They possessed many limiting factors, experienced more disappointment, and had to fight much harder for playing time than some of their teammates. Many were not even selected to the all important “A” team in middle school. Yet the more obstacles they faced and overcame, the more grit they developed. Then one day, they grew, and all of a sudden they were equally fast, strong, and skillful. Yet they possessed an additional quality that their teammates did not develop: GRIT!

Any athlete that strives to play in college, or professionally, will face numerous obstacles that talent will not overcome.  The world of professional sports is littered with extremely talented individuals who did not have the fortitude to fight for a spot, maintain their fitness and discipline, and continue to work hard and improve. I think of Freddy Adu, the young American soccer prodigy who signed pro at 14, and was recently released from his tenth pro club at age 25. I read a recent story how, in preparation for the 2010 World Cup, Adu came in dead last in a 20 minute training run, behind even the coaching staff. He was not selected for the team, and his career has continued in a downward spiral since. Why? Because he had the world handed to him at age 14, and he never developed the grit it took to continue to improve.

My advice is this: if your child is young and struggling to succeed in a sport, help them develop the grit to persevere, and the love of the sport to stick with it. Find them a team that allows them to play, and have fun. With these things, if they have the talent, they will likely enjoy a successful athletic career.

If you are a parent of a pre-pubescent all-star, do you child a favor and make sure that early success does not prevent them from developing grit. If they are the best in their age, take them to play against older kids where their athletic advantages no longer exist. Put them on a team that does not win all its games so they learn to deal with disappointment. Don’t overlook poor effort and focus -especially when they win – because one day only their very best will yield results. Above all else, remember that if your child does not develop grit, the likelihood of high-level high school, college and professional athletics are quite slim.

Here is Dr. Angela Duckworth’s recent TED talk on Grit. It is only six minutes and worth a watch. Then, below, please share your thoughts on the role of grit in developing elite athletes. Can you instill it? Are you born with it?  Is it equally important as talent and coaching? I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

More Important Than Talent

Parents ask me all the time if I think their child has what it takes to play at the college or professional level. They are asking if I think their kid has enough talent. My reply:

“How much are your kids willing to suffer?”

The answer to that simple question will go a long way in determining whether any athlete will reach his potential, and perhaps play at an elite level.  Sorry to burst many bubbles, but if athletes are not willing to suffer, chances are slim that they will make it. The will to suffer and endure not only separates average athletes from elite ones, but it separates talented elite athletes from their peers as well.

(I recorded a short video on this as well, added December 1)

More Important Than Talent

Now I know that genetics, deliberate training, coaching, and a whole slew of things go into the development of athletes. To place all your emphasis on any one factor is ill advised, and very narrow minded. Some people do this with the so-called “10,000 Hour Rule” of deliberate practice, while others believe that you either have talent or you do not.

I am in the business of training elite soccer players. I have been doing this for nearly 20 years. I have learned that no one factor takes an athlete to the next level. A combination of factors do, and for me,  an athlete’s willingness to suffer, his or her comfort with being uncomfortable, is often a strong determinant upon whether they reach their potential, or instead become another one of those “shoulda, coulda, woulda” players.

The current mythology of overnight success, where we are lead to believe every success story was born with the talent, has blinded us to the fact that the elite athletes we see on television have all suffered. They have practiced and toiled for long hours, day after day, when no one was watching. Time and again, when they wanted to quit, they did one more repetition, ran one more lap, and trained a few minutes longer. They gave up time with friends and family to pursue their craft. They make it look easy because of the thousands of hours that they made it hard on themselves. They willingly made themselves uncomfortable! They suffered because they knew that they had to in order to succeed.

Most of the athletes I work with will not ever achieve their true potential, because the thought of suffering and discomfort frightens them. Some just do not like being out of their comfort zone. Others have a fixed mindset, and are afraid that if the give their best and come up short they are some kind of failure (which of course they are not), so they never try.

Far too many have been coddled by their parents and protected from failure. Others have had coaches who let them give less than their best because they were a 12 year old star. When a coach got tough, these players were used to backing off. When they encountered adversity, their parents stepped in and intervened, instead of using it as a teachable moment. When given the choice of whether to embrace suffering, or pull back, these athletes often chose the easy path. That is why they will not make it.

Anson Dorrance is the women’s soccer coach of the twenty-two time National Champion University of North Carolina. He once encountered Mia Hamm, the reigning college player of the year, and already one of the top players in the world, training by herself early one morning on a hot, humid summer day. As he watched, she pushed herself through sprint after sprint, falling to the ground and gasping for breath after each. He wrote the following message to her:

“The true vision of a champion is someone bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when no one else is watching.”

Mia Hamm went on to become the best player in the world, not only because she had talent and great coaching, but because she was willing to suffer more than her competitors.

Are you instilling a willingness to suffer in your athletes? In your kids? Are you challenging them, making them uncomfortable, pushing them hard, and then pushing a little harder?

Are your kids willing to suffer?

If they are not, they can still do a lot of things in life, but becoming an elite athlete is probably not one of them.

Help them build the will to suffer, to endure in the face of great obstacles, and the ability to cherish the opportunity to struggle, and chances are far greater that they will reach their potential in whatever field they choose!

Suffering is the elite athlete’s best friend!

Written by John O’Sullivan founder of the Changing the Game Project. http://changingthegameproject.com/staff-bios/

Original post can be found here http://changingthegameproject.com/more-important-than-talent/